SeeCalifornia.com

Pictured are Tapwanu Idol masks at the Pacific Island Ethnic Art Museum in Long Beach, Calif. See pieam.org

The hazards of weather on land and sea were of great concern to the peoples of low-lying islands in Micronesia, much as they are in California when there’s often not enough rain water & snow melt for crops and for thirsty residents. Last month California’s weather managers planned their strategies to seed the clouds with fine particles of silver iodide sprayed into winter cloud systems arriving. Sacramento’s SMUD spent $137,000 last year on a contract with Weather Modification, Inc. to employ several pilots who flew Cessnas near cloud formations, spraying a mixture into the clouds. With the rise in use of drones, the process may become cheaper in the future as California continues to grow by up to 500,000 resident per year with virtually no new sources of water.

Back on the islands, residents created art which served as a symbolic link to the spirits, deities, and ancestors who were believed to directly influence their lives. A tapwanu “warding off spirits” life-sized mask like the one seen on this tapwanu idol was worn by weather magicians who would gather on the shoreline to recite chants and to defend their island from storms and typhoons that would endanger the island’s yearly breadfruit crop. These men belonged to a secret guild of ritual specialists called Soutapwanu “Masters of Warding off the Spirits” who lived on atolls south of Chuuk in the Easter Caroline Islands. A small tapwanu idol probably was carved and set up in the men’s meeting house and may have received ritual offerings of flower wreaths and young coconut leaves to insure a successful breadfruit harvest.